Values play a crucial role in everyday life in organizations and societies, as they facilitate choices, motivate ideas and guide behaviour (Oppenhuisen & Sikkel, 2002). Values have been defined by numerous ways. A value is defined as centrally held, a desirable mode of conduct and enduring belief that guides actions and judgement across specific situations and beyond immediate goals to more ultimate end-state of existence (Rokeach, 1973). Hosmer (1987) argues that values define priorities that are crucial for the resolution of ethical dilemmas, while Smola and Sutton (2002) claim that values define what people believe to be right or wrong. Schwartz (1992:4) indicates that values:
‘(1) are concepts or beliefs; (2) pertain to desirable end states or behaviours; (3) transcend specific situations; (4) guide selection or evaluation of behaviour and events; and (5) are ordered by relative importance.’ (Schwartz, 1992:4)
Values can be viewed as being hierarchical in nature, and it leads to the idea of value system. According to Rokeach and Ball-Rokeach (1989), it is not related to the values by themselves that matter, but it is associated with the hierarchical value system. Only the value system looked upon as a set of rank-ordered values can indicate the unique value composition of a person. Rokeach (1973:5) characterized a value system as:
‘…an enduring organization of beliefs concerning preferable modes of conduct or end-states of existence along continuum of relative importance.’ (Rokeach, 1973:5)
Rokeach (1973) considered values as two kinds: personal values (self-focused) and social values (others-focused). Lindbeck (1997) points out that values emerge as a result of spontaneous social interaction between individuals in groups. As highly intertwined attitudes and behaviours, values can not be meaningfully explained via solely probing an individual’s values separately and independently of others. Kempton et al. (1995) also emphasize that the cultural framework shapes the issues people see as important and effects the way they act on those issues. People assess
themselves in relation to others through shared experiences, which underscore the importance of group affiliations and values as a socially embedding reality (Marske, 1996). White (1998) further reports that social norms and values involve a collective, shared evaluation of what behaviour ought to be while translating into sanctions to induce a particular behaviour or value. In addition, Thomson et al. (1999) confirmed values as implicated beliefs, discourses and identities while simultaneously representing a given worth in particular communities or economies. Values thus constitute and reflect expected behaviour and are used to enforce sanctions such as blame and praise, social inclusion and exclusion, and the importance of values is reflected in the way they interact and influence social organizations, behaviours and market outcomes (Anderson, 2000).
Values are influenced more by life events and socialisation of times than by age and maturity (Smola & Sutton, 2002). Jehn et al. (1997) believe that value convergence reflects the degree to which all members of a group agree on values about behaviour group processes and intra-group relationships. Yang (1998) argues that an increase in wealth leads to increased similarity across-culture, and modernization established a high degree of agreement on the characteristics and values of a modern person, irrespective of their culture. In developing countries, value convergence is popularised amongst youth (Smith & Bond, 1999). In addition to trends towards the possible convergence, time and the development of society over time also contribute to changes in values. Current day society changes values and customs more quickly than previous generations while also being more conscious of the changes (Kubler, 2001). Value and ideological differences will cease to exist due to increased exposure among societies and individuals (Thomas, 2002).
Tardiff (2002) indicates that relationships between cultures and societies are subject to market rules, and values are exported via various media channels. In history, China has exported its values by means of trade and migration. However, in recent decades, technological development and accessibility has contributed to an unprecedented exposure to Western values in the rest of the world. The excessive exposure to the Western culture and values is often argued to lead to individuals and societies increasingly becoming westernised and either gradually accepting Western values or even replacing their traditional values with those from the West (Tardiff, 2002).
2.2.4.2 Value and belief system and leadership style
Values can influence job choice decisions, job satisfactions and commitment to the organization (Judge & Bretz, 1992). Leaders can be distinguished according to their orientation and values (Bass, 1990a; Stogdill & Coons, 1957). The personal values held by managers increasingly have been shown to have an impact on their behaviour and performance and, ultimately, on organizational performance (Westwood & Posner, 1997). Badaracco (1998) also confirms that the most satisfied business leaders are the ones who are able to dig below the busy surface of their daily lives and refocus on their core values and principles. However, recent leadership research has largely ignored values and beliefs despite their long history (Hunt & Dodge, 2000). The study of values and beliefs as the means of understanding leadership style is therefore advocated by leadership researchers. Russell (2001) points out that an individual’s behaviour is stimulated by their core values and beliefs. Such core values and beliefs may affect a leader’s cognitive progress, and in turn influence the leader’s thoughts and behaviours (Lord & Emrich, 2001). Hence behavioural characteristics that differentiate one leadership paradigm from another can be explained through assessing differences in the leader’s value and belief system (Karishnan, 2001; Sarros & Santora, 2001).
One emerging area of interest in leadership is the study of the value and belief systems of transactional leaders and transformational leaders (Krishnan, 2001). Sarros and Santora (2001) and Krishnan (2001) have sought to investigate the value and belief systems held by transformational leaders, with both studies concluding that transformational leaders indeed report value systems that are distinguishable from other types of leaders. Transformational leadership is closely related to the values of achievement, benevolence, self-direction (intellectual autonomy), and stimulation (intellectual challenge) (Sarros & Santora, 2001). In particularly, a strong positive correlation has been found among transformational leadership behaviour and values encouraging personal and professional development (Sarros & Santora, 2001). The findings also suggest that leaders who aspire to transformational behaviour can use contingent reward as a substitute to achieve similar outcomes, as contingent reward was found to be closely associated with each of these values, particularly self-
direction (Sarros & Santora, 2001). In contrast, management by exception, and laissez-faire leadership, were found to be minimally related with these value dimensions (Sarros & Santora, 2001).
Similarly, Krishnan (2001) indicates that for terminal values, transformational leaders are likely to give high priority to ‘a world at peace’ but low priority to ‘national security’ and ‘a world of beauty’, and for instrumental values, transformational leaders provide a higher rank to ‘responsible’ but low rank to ‘intellectual’. The findings suggest that transformational leaders value collective welfare more than their personal welfare, and they guide themselves via broader values like equality and change-oriented values (Krishnan, 2001). Burns (1978) considers transformational leaders as moral ones, and he views the linkage between moral and transformational leadership as the one of basic principles of transformational leadership. Krishnan (2001) further states that transformational leadership can be seen as the equivalent of moral leadership, whilst moral leadership can be viewed as one part of transformational leadership. Transformational leadership enhances leader-follower terminal value system congruence, follower’s identification with the organization, and follower’s attachment and affective commitment to the organization (Krishnan, 2005).
2.2.4.3 Problems and undeveloped issues
It has been argued that the values of Chinese people have been changed and tend to be westernised in terms of globalization and the influence of Western culture and values. As have been discussed in previous sections, due to the strong influence of communism and the impact of a series of socialist movements, such as the Culture Revolution (1966-1976), part of traditional Chinese culture and social values could have been fundamentally changed or even systematically destroyed. As a result of thirty years of socialist movements and another thirty years of economic reforms, a modern neo-Confucian value system may gradually be merging as, in contrast to traditional collectivism, and the major aspects of Chinese individual-oriented characters could be increased as well. In particular, for the Chinese managers working for foreign ventures, due to excessive exposure to Western organizational culture and management practices, the changes of their personal values, management concepts and leadership styles probably have been remarkable. However, it could be argued
that whether or not traditional Chinese values and beliefs of Chinese managers working for foreign ventures have been entirely changed, and whether or not their personal values and beliefs have been westernized, and thus further study is needed.
As implicated beliefs, discourses, and identities in particular communities or economics, values are relatively stable and difficult to change (Thomson et al., 1999). Unlike the respondents from Japan, Russia, and Australia, ‘self-direction’ was not identified by Chinese managers as a critical value dimension; however, ‘achievement’ was found as one of major values of Chinese managers, and it might feature more significantly as a key driving value for Chinese leaders in the future (Sarros & Santora, 2001). The environment of collective notions of socialism also seems to account for Chinese managers’ predominant value orientation of benevolence and security (Sarros & Santora, 2001). In this sense, then, traditional values and beliefs of Chinese managers working for foreign ventures probably remain unchanged. The traditional Chinese values and beliefs, therefore, could lead to certain significant differences in leadership styles between Chinese and Western managers.
However, it is of particular interest to note that there is an argument of whether or not values have much impact on actual leader’s behaviour. Argyris and Schön (1996) claim that leader espoused values have little effect on how managers actually work with employees. In order to conform to the corporate culture and the core values and behavioural norms, Chinese managers working for foreign ventures might have somewhat adjusted their leadership behaviours; whereas, their personal values and beliefs are probably never given up. Therefore it is also necessary to further examine the change trend of Chinese managers’ value systems.